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Thursday, May 23, 2013

Can someone help me - I'm not sure which of the following is a Chillul Hashem and/or keeping Moshiach away:

A. Inviting and Orthodox Rabbi to speak as Scholar in Residence at an Orthodox Shul in North America.

- or -

B. Publicly expressing outrage over the choice of speaker in an Orthodox Shul in a different city, refusing to refer to the speaker as "Rabbi", and describing him (without any effort to back up the claim) as "someone who has publicly stated his disdain for the leaders of our generation and for those who toil in Torah".

Background - one of the biggest shuls in North America, BAYT has invited Rabbi Dov Lipman to come as Scholar in Residence for a Shabbat.
For people not familiar with Rabbi Lipman, he is an Orthodox (Haredi) Rabbi who has been active for many years against religious extremism, particularly in Beit Shemesh, and he recently was elected to the Knesset as a part of Yair Lapid "Yesh Atid Party"

As someone who has rallied against religious extremism, and actively encourages Haredim to get at least a minimal secular education so that they can become part of the work force (something which is standard practice in most Haredi communities outside of Israel) he has received a lot of criticism from people in the Haredi camp.

But when BAYT invited him to speak, T Fink of Matzav felt obligated to publicly express "outrage" and fill a column with pure hatred and Loshan Hara.and then finishes his column with the following gem:

My prayer is that this plague of recognizing those who publicly defame and put down our gedolei Yisroel will come to an end, and together may we all merit to greet Moshiach soon bekedushah v’taharah.

I don't pretend to know how we can bring Moshiach sooner, but I'm reasonably sure that an Internet column full of Sinach Chinam is not a step in the right direction.

My prayer is that this plague of publicly encouraging hatred and putting down our fellow Jews in the name of gedolei Yisroel will come to an end, and together may we all merit to greet Moshiach soon bekedushah v’taharah.

In the mean time, if you are in Thornhill or Toronto on Parshat Pinchas, may I recommend an interesting speaker at BAYT.